Resistance (2 page)

There were basic tensions between the formal structure of the ghetto and informal structures that filled the vacuum of leadership and alleviated, at least in some small way, the harsh conditions of ghetto life. Children were indispensable to smuggling food, and family life was preserved despite the strains.

By mid-July 1942 the ghetto was in a panic. Rumors of deportation were rife. Czerniakow heard these rumors, and sought reassurance for his people. The leader of the Judenrat sought exemptions for children and for orphans. In the end, the order for deportation appeared, without Czerniakow's signature. The wife of the Judenrat chairman was held hostage to ensure his compliance with the Nazi master. On the evening of July 2.3, the ninth day of Av—the day of mourning commemorating the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and the exile of the Jewish people—Czerniakow completed the ninth book of his diary. To continue writing, he would have had to open a new book. Instead, that very same day he swallowed cyanide. There were no words of warning, only a final tragic confession of failure: "The SS wants me to kill children with my own hands." He could not participate.

Even in death Czerniakow remained controversial. Those close to him felt that his suicide was testimony to his personal courage, to his sense of public responsibility, an act of ultimate integrity. Underground circles were less charitable. They saw his death as an act of weakness. He had not even summoned the courage to warn the ghetto and to call for resistance.

During the days that followed, hundreds of thousands of Jews were dragged to the
Umschlagplatz
(assembly and deportation point) and transported in cattle cars to Treblinka. Initially, the task of rounding up the Jews for deportation fell to some extent to the Jewish police, but within a week the SS, aided by Ukrainian, Latvian, and Lithuanian soliders, as well as by the German gendarmerie—some two hundred men in all—took the lead and systematically laid siege to blocks, buildings, and streets. Those awaiting deportation were anxious; families struggled to stay together while some sought to escape the ghetto, to find a place to hide on the "other side of the wall." Others, such as Janusz Korczak and his orphans, went together—children and educators. Emanuel Ringelblum described the scene: "Korczak set the tone: everybody was to go to the
Umschlagplatz
together. Some of the boarding school principals knew what was in store for them there, but they felt they could not abandon the children in this dark hour and had to accompany them to their death." Korczak had firmly resisted all personal offers of safety.

The first to be taken were the weakest. Then came those who lacked papers and permanent jobs. They, in turn, were followed by relatives
of
those who had exemption papers, and finally even workers with proper papers were taken. Everyone was a potential victim. Families had to decide whether to stay together. Should mothers go with their children? What of the fathers?

Among the young and the resistance, demoralization set in after the deportations. Demoralization and recriminations were especially prominent, since in the early days of the July deportation a decision had been made that the time was not yet ripe for resistance. The survivors were frustrated and enraged that they had not fought the Germans or even struck out against the Jewish police. Remorse was deep. As Yitzhak Zuckerman reported on a conversation:

 

Jewish resistance will never come into being after us. The nation is lost. If we couldn't organize Jewish force while there were still hundreds of thousands in Warsaw, how can we do so when only a few thousand are left? The masses did not place their trust in us. We do not have—and probably never will have—weapons. We don't have the strength to start all over again. The nation has been destroyed; our honor trampled upon.

 

Because there was no choice, despair soon gave way to a firm determination to resist. Yet first, deep political divisions had to be overcome and alliances had to be forged among Jewish fighting factions torn by deep ideological rifts. Zionists of the right and the left, religious non-Zionists, socialists, Bundists, and Communists were at odds with each other, divided over what tactics and strategies to employ, when to strike, whom to trust, what contacts to make. Divisions were so deep that the Revisionist Zionists established their own fighting unit, with only marginal contacts with the major resistance organization. Even the Nazi threat of total destruction could not unify the Jews, but the unification that was finally achieved represented almost all major political and social streams in Jewish life.

The Germans were hesitant to destroy the entire ghetto population. They did not want to lose the assets of the ghetto, including enterprises they wanted to transfer intact. Furthermore, they required Jewish labor to gather, store, and guard existing property. The deportation of July-September 1942 reduced the ghetto population from 400,000 to between 50,000 and 60,000 people. After the summer deportations the ghetto was left a mere remnant consisting mostly of men, whose chances for survival were enhanced by their usefulness for heavy labor. Almost all were between the ages of fifteen and fifty.

Belated efforts were made to forge a fighting organization. Political solidarity was required as was a unity of purpose and program. These were not easily achieved amidst the tensions and anguish of the post-deportation ghetto. The Jewish Fighting Organization, the ZOB, its leadership and fighters, emerged from the shadows of the first deportation. The ZOB members saw themselves as rejecting a Jewish tradition of passivity and compliance and returning to the heroic days of Jewish fighters of biblical times. And they conceived of themselves as an expression of Jewish national redemption.

Mordecai Anielewicz, who was to emerge as the undisputed leader of the Uprising, returned to Warsaw after the deportations from eastern Silesia, where he was engaged in underground work. Because he had been outside the ghetto during the decisive days of July—September, he was also free of the hesitation and powerlessness that had eroded the spirit of some of the ZOB members when they recognized the full consequences of their failure. He was soon to become a hero because of his extraordinary accomplishments during the few months of dynamic preparations and at the height of the battle.

The first act of resistance was an assassination attempt against the chief of the Jewish police, Jozef Szerynski, who, in the words of one diarist, "aided in the execution of 100,000 Jews." Soon Jacob Lejkin, another prominent policeman, was assassinated. Within a month, the first Judenrat official, Yisrael First, was killed. The ZOB were convinced that the ghetto could not be transformed into a fighting force unless the fifth column elements were eliminated. They also understood that the Nazis would not intervene in internal Jewish vendettas.

The ZOB insisted that there could be no next time, no further deportations, at least not without a fight. They proclaimed, in a public manifesto:

Jewish masses, the hour is drawing near. You must be prepared to resist. Not a single Jew should go to the railroad cars. Those who are unable to put up active resistance should resist passively, should go into hiding ... Our slogan must be:
All are ready to die as human beings.

 

On January 9,1943, Heinrich Himmler paid a visit to the ghetto. Two days later he ordered the deportation of eight thousand remaining Jews, who constituted the "illegal element." This time, the Jewish reaction was different. Ghetto streets were deserted, many went into hiding. A group of fighters under the command of Anielewicz attacked the Germans, and the first street battle occurred in the ghetto. By the third day of the
Aktion
the Germans were reduced to shooting wildly—and for the first time Jews had shot German soldiers. Armed resistance had begun. The Germans were suddenly hesitant and cautious. They did not go down to cellars, and each Jew they captured was searched. Streets became the scene of battle.

The
Aktion
ended within a matter of days. The remaining Jews were electrified. They falsely assumed that Jewish resistance, not Jewish compliance, had brought the deportations to a halt. Again they reproved themselves for their inaction during the fateful deportations. Hideouts were fortified, resistance units were strengthened. "The January revolt made the April revolt possible!" said one of the major leaders of the Uprising.

No doubt remained regarding the fate of the ghetto, and the only decision to be made was the response of those who remained. The ghetto had to be purged of dangerous collaborators. Money was desperately needed to purchase arms, cultivate contacts on the Aryan side, and acquire modest but substantial aid from the Polish underground. Planning for battle began in earnest. The leadership rejected a plan to transport some Jews to partisan areas clandestinely, and thus rescue at least a remnant. The reasoning was simple, Yitzhak Zuckerman said:

 

We saw ourselves as a Jewish underground whose fate was a tragic one ... a pioneer force not only from a Jewish standpoint but also from the standpoint of the entire embattled world—the first to fight.
For our hour had come without any sign of hope or rescue.

 

The attitude within the ghetto had changed completely. When the Germans approached the leader of the Warsaw Judenrat, Marc Lichtenbaum, to speak to Jewish workers, his response was, "I am not the authority in the ghetto. There is another authority—the Jewish Fighting Organization." From January onward, Jewish forces stood on high alert, ready for action if the need arose. The high alert lasted eighty-seven days.

The Uprising itself, which began on April 19, 1943, the first night of Passover, continued until the final liquidation of the ghetto. Three days were allocated for liquidating the Warsaw ghetto. The battle of the bunkers continued for more than a month.

As the ghetto was set aflame, some Jews escaped through the sewers. One survivor reports:

 

On May 10, 1943, at 9 o'clock in the morning the lid of the sewer over our head literally opened and a flood of sunlight streamed in. At the opening of the sewer Krzaczek [a member of the Polish resistance] was standing and calling us to come out. We started to climb out one after another and at once got on a truck. It was a beautiful spring day and the sun warmed us. Our eyes were blinded by the bright light, as we had not seen daylight for many weeks and had spent the time in complete darkness. The streets were crowded with people, and everybody stood still and watched, while strange beings, hardly recognizable as humans, crawled out of the sewers.

 

The Uprising was literally a revolution in Jewish history. Its importance was understood all too well by those who fought. On April 23 Mordecai Anielewicz wrote to his comrade in arms Yitzhak Zuckerman:

 

What we have experienced cannot be described in words. We are aware of one thing only: what has happened has exceeded our dreams. The Germans ran twice from the ghetto ... I have the feeling that great things are happening, that we have dared is of great importance....

Keep well, my dear. Perhaps we shall meet again. But what really matters is that the dream of my life has become true. Jewish self defense in the Warsaw ghetto has become a fact. Jewish armed resistance and the retaliation have become a reality. I have been witness to the magnificent heroic struggle of the Jewish fighters.

 

B
Y MID-MAY
1943, the rebellion of the Warsaw ghetto had come to an end. The last groups of Jews had been murdered or sent to death camps. Perhaps a few thousand were hiding underground. The people were gone; so too their homes, apartments, workshops, factories, public and welfare institutions, synagogues, makeshift houses of prayer, hospitals, and old-age homes—all had been systematically erased from the face of the earth, vanished forever.

On the fifteenth of May 1943, SS General Jürgen Stroop, whose forces had destroyed the Warsaw ghetto, triumphantly reported that the guards on duty the night before had encountered only six or seven Jews in the ghetto area. Only a handful of Jews remained within the ruins of the ghetto. Stroop also noted that he had blown up the great synagogue of Warsaw, located outside the ghetto area. This imposing structure, the work of the architect Leandro Marconi in 1878, was the pride of many Jews. To the Nazis, its destruction symbolized the final victory of German power and spirit. The Jews of Warsaw had been destroyed. The material remains of Jewish life would also be eradicated.

General Stroop began his report of May 15 with an enthusiastic description of the victorious military campaign. Heavy artillery had been employed; thousands of casualties had been inflicted on the enemy. In the words of his summary: "The Jewish quarter in Warsaw is no longer."

Indeed, Jewish life in Warsaw had ended. For nearly four years, Jews had fought for their lives, their children, and their homes. The non-Jewish world ignored their struggle or simply became resigned to the situation. Only a few, a very precious few, risked their lives by coming to aid the Jews.

The final chapter of the Jewish community in Warsaw had begun only four years earlier, on September 1,1939.

In the summer of 1939, Germany presented Poland with an ultimatum demanding changes in the boundaries between the two countries; German inducements were tangible, its threats veiled. Poland stood firm. Along with the rest of the world, Polish leaders had followed the Reich's trail of broken agreements, dictates, and territorial expansion. Poland knew from the sad experience of Czechoslovakia and Austria that initially restrained German demands soon would be followed by ever-growing claims and threats to destroy the enemy and all European democracies. The Polish affair would end with the German occupation of its enfeebled neighbor. An attack could be expected; the only question was when.

Warsaw took some modest steps to prepare for war. Volunteers dug trenches around the approaches to the capital. Members of the Polish intelligentsia, who had never held a shovel, stood shoulder to shoulder with caftan-clad Jews, and they worked feverishly to protect the capital city. On August 19, 1939, Warsaw mayor Stefan Starzynski told residents, "Yesterday, more than zo,ooo men dug trenches. Therefore, there are now a dozen kilometers of trenches already in a proper condition."